Constructing known un-knowns:International Organisations and the strategic making of non-knowledge

Although scholarship has devoted a lot of attention to statistical knowledge production by organisations like the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the World Bank, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization and many others, we know far less about parallel processes of construction of ‘non-knowledge’. This article’s focus is on the enactment of ‘non-knowledge’ in the governance of education and well-being; or, in other words, the strategic prioritization of certain knowledge versus other. Specifically, through a focus on two empirical examples, the paper examines the construction of non-knowledge as an essential part of the measurement process: rather than the opposite of knowledge however, or its reading as a binary, the paper views the construction of both knowledge and non-knowledge as a symbiotic relationship, necessary for balancing out and achieving equilibrium of the metrological field.Bien que les chercheurs aient consacré beaucoup d'attention à la production de connaissances statistiques par des organisations telles que l'Organisation de coopération et de développement économiques, la Banque mondiale, l'Organisation des Nations unies pour l'éducation, la science et la culture et bien d'autres, nous en savons beaucoup moins sur les processus parallèles de construction du "non-savoir ". Cet article se concentre sur la mise en œuvre du "non-savoir" dans la gouvernance de l'éducation et du bien-être ou, en d'autres termes, sur la priorité stratégique accordée à certaines connaissances par rapport à d'autres. Plus précisément, en se concentrant sur deux exemples empiriques, l'article envisage la construction du non-savoir comme une partie essentielle du processus de mesure plutôt que son opposé selon une logique binaire. L'article considère ainsi la construction du savoir et du non-savoir comme une relation symbiotique, nécessaire pour équilibrer le champ métrologique

Governing through Learning:School Self-Evaluation as a Knowledge-based Regulatory Tool

This paper discusses knowledge-based regulation tools (KBRTs) as new forms of regulation through an exploration of school self-evaluation (SSE) in Scot­land. We conceptualise self-evaluation as a hybrid regulatory instrument, combining data-based knowledge with knowledges “performed” by institutions and individuals to order to demonstrate their progress on the “journey to excellen­ce” in learning (HMIe, 2009) that is expected of schools, teachers and learners in Scotland. We see the development of self-evaluation in Scotland and more widely as arising from earlier over-reliance on data and from the proliferation of information that together combine to produce the problem of “evidence” as a governing technology. Data require continuous and demanding work – including interpretive work – if they are to be effective. SSE, we suggest, offers a combination of data-based knowledge with professional expertise and individual responsibility, that enables the governing and shaping of the school as a “learning organisation” and, in the context of Scotland on which this paper pri­marily focuses, reflects the presentation of governing as learning activity, in which pupils, teachers, local authorities and government itself are collectively engaged